The Crown's Game (The Crown's Game, #1)(82)

“Will you talk to her? Invite her for a walk, or do anything to take her mind off her father for a short while? I realize it’s bold of me to ask, and you have the boats to observe—”

“No. I’m glad you came to me. I shall send a coach for her straightaway.”

His carriage pulled up to the Winter Palace, hopefully with Vika in it. Pasha had returned home to shave and put on neater clothes, and to have pity on his Guard and actually inform them of his location and intentions. Now, as he passed Ilya in the courtyard, he patted him on the back and whispered, “The boats at Chernyshev Bridge. Well done. I’ll best you next time.” The guard laughed before he snapped his mouth closed and attempted to look stern again.

Pasha slipped into the carriage as soon as the coachman opened the door. Vika indeed sat inside, dressed in all black. She had even changed her hair so that it was no longer a single stripe of ebony, but an entire mantle of it. Her mien managed to darken even the white paneled walls and cream leather of the carriage. Good gracious, Ludmila had been right. This Vika was a different girl entirely.

“You requested my presence?” She hardly glanced up as Pasha slid onto the seat across from her.

“I heard you needed a change of scenery.”

“The scenery in my room was fine.”

“Ludmila said you’ve been staring at the face of an armoire with only an evil-looking rat as company. I don’t think that qualifies as ‘fine.’”

“His name is Poslannik.”

“Pardon?”

“The rat. The rat’s name is Poslannik. And he isn’t evil.”

“Ludmila is concerned about you.”

The carriage started with a lurch, and the sound of horse’s hooves—both those that led the carriage and those that belonged to the Guard—surrounded them.

“Where are we going?”

“I thought we might go for a ride in the country. I asked the coachman to take a scenic route to Tsarskoe Selo, my family’s summer residence. No one is there now, so the gardens will be all yours. Perhaps the fresh air will do you good.”

“My father is dead. Or the man I thought was my father. And my mother, whom I thought had died, apparently did not, but abandoned me instead. My entire life has been a lie. I doubt fresh air will do a thing to change that.”

Pasha sat back in his seat and looked at her scowl. She was still beautiful, but with her expression as black as her hair, her beauty was of a fiercer kind. An almost frightening kind. After Vika’s warnings about the danger of magic, Pasha wondered if he’d taken the recent enchantments too lightly, and if he’d fallen too easily under Vika’s spell.

“I’m sorry.” Vika sighed, and the furrow of her brow softened. “I appreciate you coming to see me. I shouldn’t take my grief out on you.”

“It’s all right. It must have been quite a shock.” His concerns about her ferocity fell away. Instead, he wanted to protect her. But that was foolish. A girl like Vika didn’t need protecting.

“I didn’t even know he was sick,” she said. “Father had gone away on a trip, and I simply assumed he was safe. He was so strong, I never imagined him otherwise.”

Pasha wanted to cross the space between them and comfort her. But she would probably shift away. Wouldn’t she? It was certainly a risk. But she’d come in the carriage. She could have declined. Pasha decided to take the chance.

He moved across the coach to the seat beside her, taking her hand. She startled and almost withdrew it, but then . . . she didn’t. She leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder instead.

A smile bloomed across Pasha’s face. Even in her grief, Vika smelled sweet. Like flowers and warm spice. He tried not to move at all, so that she would stay nestled into his side.

“Father gave his entire life to me,” Vika murmured. “But what was the point when he didn’t survive long enough to . . .”

“To what?”

She shook her head against his shoulder. “I must make him proud. I can’t let his death be in vain.”

Pasha touched her arm gently. “I’m sure he was proud. It would be impossible not to be.”

The roads grew rougher the farther they traveled from the center of Saint Petersburg, and the carriage bumped along the dirt. Soon, they were outside the city limits, and the scenery gave way to more space: fewer buildings, save for the small houses that sprinkled the landscape every now and then, and more fields and clusters of red-and gold-leaved trees. It was a good plan, Pasha thought, to head to Tsarskoe Selo. A walk through the gardens and woods really would do Vika good.

She didn’t speak much. But Pasha was all right with that. She didn’t need his words; she needed room to breathe.

He did not, of course, understand the full extent of her grief. But he knew the fear of it. He thought of the tsar and tsarina at the Sea of Azov. Pasha shuddered. Mother will be all right. She’ll recover. She’ll return.

As the carriage approached Tsarskoe Selo, Vika fell asleep against him, and Pasha was loath to wake her. Ludmila had told him of Vika’s nightmares, the constant tossing and turning and unconscious wailing. So when the coachman slowed the carriage and inquired whether Pasha wished to stop, he commanded the coachman to continue onward. They would take a circuitous route around the nearby villages, then proceed slowly home to Saint Petersburg.